QuestWorlds Update: 2022 is going to be the year of Questworlds!

[MOB]

A quick update from QuestWorlds line editor Ian Cooper:

"The first draft of the Questworlds Core Book is off to copy editing here at Chaosium! 

Susan O'Brien will be polishing it up – I am really looking forward to the process of collaborating with her to make QuestWorlds better and take it to the next stage. I'm far too close to it now, to be capable of the alchemy that will turn lead into gold.

We are getting art in from Lionel Marty, including the character art shown above, and now I can focus on finishing art direction (and drawing up some charts etc.), whilst the book goes through the refiner's fire.

2022 is going to be the year of Questworlds!

And don't forget in the mean time you can always check out the SRD."

[Doug]

Any updates?

[godsmonkey]

On 5/10/2022 at 8:59 AM, Doug said:

Any updates?

It's like waiting for Cyberpunk 2077. Hopefully the end results are better.

 

[g33k]

On 5/10/2022 at 5:59 AM, Doug said:

Any updates?

I'm guessing it's much too soon for any change of status.

The stage (as mentioned in the OP above) of " ... off to copy editing ... finishing art direction ... drawing up some charts ... etc ... " is a very time-consuming stage, a very laborious process.

I note, in particular, the "art direction."  That means Ian was still describing what was wanted, collecting example/inspiration pieces, etc.  The artist(s) hadn't even begun work on those pieces of art, for which no art-direction existed.

And after SOB finishes draft, along with Ian's "charts etc" and all that art, it still needs to go through layout; at a guess, that would be the next stage we might get word of (although sometimes Chaosium seems to include "layout" into this same stage, and not break it out as worthy of separate report).

Edited May 14, 2022 by g33k

[Richard S.]

23 hours ago, g33k said:

I'm guessing it's much too soon for any change of status.

The stage (as mentioned in the OP above) of " ... off to copy editing ... finishing art direction ... drawing up some charts ... etc ... " is a very time-consuming stage, a very laborious process.

I note, in particular, the "art direction."  That means Ian was still describing what was wanted, collecting example/inspiration pieces, etc.  The artist(s) hadn't even begun work on those pieces of art, for which no art-direction existed.

And after SOB finishes draft, along with Ian's "charts etc" and all that art, it still needs to go through layout; at a guess, that would be the next stage we might get word of (although sometimes Chaosium seems to include "layout" into this same stage, and not break it out as worthy of separate report).

All true, but it still would be nice to get some sort of update on where we're at. Maybe some previews or design notes like we got in the leadup to Runequest. For already being halfway through the "year of Questworlds" there's been remarkably little of it.

[g33k]

11 minutes ago, Richard S. said:

All true, but it still would be nice to get some sort of update on where we're at...

My experience (since getting back on the Chaosium bandwagon with the RQClassic KS) is that they don't issue an "update" when the status hasn't actually changed; so far as I can tell, this step in the process is just a very long step... but still a single step, i.e. no change in status.  OTOH, maybe they moved faster than I expect and are drafting an press-release update even as we debate the topic!  😉
 

16 minutes ago, Richard S. said:

... Maybe some previews or design notes like we got in the leadup to Runequest ...

HW/HQ/QW fans have an entire SRD available!

Frankly, that is infinitely more than RQ fans got prior to RQG... in that it's a fully-playable "final draft" RPG not mere "design notes."
 

25 minutes ago, Richard S. said:

... For already being halfway through the "year of Questworlds" there's been remarkably little of it.

Well... closer to 1/3 of the way through (4.5 months; not 6!).
But, point taken.  That's kind of a LOT of "the year of <X>" to go by with no actual "X" released...

[JonL]

I have some hope of picking up a spankin-new QW book or few at Gen Con, but Chaosium only floated a single session - which makes me think they're not confident of having it back from the printers by then.

OTOH, the independent Lurking Fears crew has also offered some QW games and 3/4 have already sold out (including a non-Glorantha one). Hopefully Chaosium will notice the demand.

I'm also not running or playing QW there this year, since I'm bringing my daughters, aged 11 & 13, and all the QW games are 13+. @Todd@Chaosium & I discussed programming a Chaosium youth-event track back before the plague. Perhaps we can revisit for next year now that things have stabilized to the point where any sort of planning makes sense.  

Edited May 17, 2022 by JonL

[g33k]

On 5/17/2022 at 9:20 AM, JonL said:

... @Todd@Chaosium & I discussed programming a Chaosium youth-event track back before the plague. Perhaps we can revisit for next year now that things have stabilized to the point where any sort of planning makes sense.  

Yeah, my go-to 'Con is one of the very-oldest, but still not "huge" by any means, DunDraCon (held near San Francisco).  This year was the first since Covid.  Used to be they were approaching 2K attendees, though this year was off the mark, I think about 1200 (would need to check).

They had both a "kids" and a "teens" area.  My littles are all not-so-little, and ineligible now; but I poked my head in once or twice, and noted they seemed popular.  Also the free minis-painting seminar/craftroom always had a fair number of the younger set.

[MOB]

A status update from QuestWorlds line editor Ian Cooper:

"The Core Rules are currently in editing. As I wrote much of the manuscript, I asked Susan O'Brien to step in to edit the text. It was long enough that we breaking the manuscript into two parts. I have been through Susan's edits for the first half, and responded, which now need review. I am about to tackle the second half. It's worth taking our time to get this right as the edits will really help in our goal to make the rules clear to folks. 

Art for Questworlds is by the amazing Lionel Marty and we are close to done. Lots of amazing art and our cover is already in. I have four more pieces of art direction to find time to write, and then we can close out this volume. 

So we are at the point we where will begin conversations around planning for layout, graphic design and some of the additional elements like tables, charts, and character sheets. 

We are close now. And once it is done, we can focus more fully on the second core book, Worlds and Quests." 

[groovyclam]

Could this be passed on to Ian Cooper:

I've just read the SRD and have a tiny change suggestion (but I realise it's a bit late).

When it comes to written mastery rolls I suggest changing the form from e.g.:

7M ( for target number 7 plus 1 mastery ) 

to:

7M1 ( this way it follows in the same pattern for higher mastery rolls e.g. 7M3 ).

For some reason my brain processes this far easier than just 7M ( because that smacks of "seven masteries" ). I can always read the written form from back to front and get the correct meaning with 7M1, 7M2, 7M3 etc.

Edited July 13, 2022 by groovyclam

[JonL]

We've discussed that before, and even that there's an implicit "M0" after lower ratings. The SRD is probably more or less stable for now, but explicit notation of M1 and/or M0 is totally a thing someone building a game with QW could decide to do. It's really down to whether you want to prioritize spotting masteries at a glance on the sheet vs rigor and consistency. I definitely see the advantage of the latter in learning the concept, but prefer the former in use.

How you're scaling ranges is a factor as well. If you're scaled like HQG where it's rare for M2+ to come up in play, just sticking with "M" for M1 ratings is probably cleaner. If you were scaling more like HW & HQ1 did, such that M2+ ratings were much more common, then there would likely be more value in explicitly notating M1. I similarly might go all the way to an explicit M0 for an Amber or DBZ like experience where there were explicit in-fiction power-tiers that I wanted to emphasize. In that last example though, I'd be tempted to call them something setting appropriate rather than just using a number.

Edited July 13, 2022 by JonL

[Lordabdul]

On 7/13/2022 at 2:57 AM, groovyclam said:

For some reason my brain processes this far easier than just 7M ( because that smacks of "seven masteries" ). I can always read the written form from back to front and get the correct meaning with 7M1, 7M2, 7M3 etc.

I actually _always_ read stuff like 7M3 as "7 masteries + 3" so I would have loved to completely inverse the notation 😄   But obviously that wouldn't be possible.

[DreadDomain]

For a long while I've been thinking that QW should have used a d10 instead of d20 and abilities wriiten like this "Electric Zap 06", "Parkour 12", "Super Strength 58" where the last number is the number you roll on a d10 and first number(s) represents the number of mastery.

[JonL]

4 hours ago, DreadDomain said:

For a long while I've been thinking that QW should have used a d10 instead of d20 and abilities wriiten like this "Electric Zap 06", "Parkour 12", "Super Strength 58" where the last number is the number you roll on a d10 and first number(s) represents the number of mastery.

Interesting. The main reason to not drop to d10 is that ties are unhelpful  in QW, and that halving of the roll space quadruples their likelihood (Differing ratings make it a bit more involved than just 1/400 vs 1/100, but it's proportionally similar. )

[DreadDomain]

4 hours ago, JonL said:

Interesting. The main reason to not drop to d10 is that ties are unhelpful  in QW, and that halving of the roll space quadruples their likelihood (Differing ratings make it a bit more involved than just 1/400 vs 1/100, but it's proportionally similar. )

Good point. There are a few things that would need to be figured out to make it work. If I ever go back to QW, I might give it a go. Another wart is that having 10 is literally, 1 mastery with 0 as an ability to roll against. It's just that abilities would look so much better written as 46 instead of 12M4 😉

[Mark Mohrfield]

On 7/16/2022 at 11:12 PM, JonL said:

Interesting. The main reason to not drop to d10 is that ties are unhelpful  in QW, and that halving of the roll space quadruples their likelihood (Differing ratings make it a bit more involved than just 1/400 vs 1/100, but it's proportionally similar. )

Actually it only halves them from 1/20 to 1/10 (which is still significant, IMO.)

[JonL]

On 7/18/2022 at 2:04 PM, Mark Mohrfield said:

Actually it only halves them from 1/20 to 1/10 (which is still significant, IMO.)

That depends on whether you're asking "What's the chance of rolling a specific number twice in a row?", "What's the chance of rolling any number twice in a row?", or "I just rolled this number.  What's the chance of you rolling another one?" - all of which are valid. It still gets more complicated when you bring varying ratings into it, as rolling the same number may or may not be a tie on a particular contest. In any case, smaller die means more ties, which is generally undesirable. 

Edited July 20, 2022 by JonL